Friday, February 24, 2017

Greetings! After a long absence, I'm back, and about to embark on another boat building adventure. I'm planning a big trip down the ohio river, Kentucky Lake, Tennessee River, Tombigbee River, and ultimately. The west coast of Florida.

Choosing a boat design for this kind of trip is really the hardest part of the process. My first impulse was to go big, with comfort being the key part of the design. With this idea in mind, I started looking at triloboat designs. I was thinking along the lines of 24x7. I quickly reversed this decision and decided going smaller would be a better way to go.

I began drawing up some smaller versions of a suitable trilo design. Finally deciding that a 16x6.5 could be very comfortable. Some of my lines ended up being the wrong color but you should be able to get an idea of what I had in mind.

Since I'm planning to do as much of the trip as possible with electric drive, I finally abandoned the barge type hull. Speed can make a huge difference on a trip like this, so perhaps a sleeker hull would be a good choice.

After studying plans by many different designers, i then settled on a michalak musicbox 2. Pretty much the same dimensions as a bolger micro, and a much faster hull. I think musicbox 2 would be a very good choice for trip like this.

After being about 80% settled on musicbox 2 I started thinking why not go even smaller?

I commissioned a design from a drawing I made for Jim Michalak called Robbsboat.

I built one several years ago but only used it a couple of times with a 2.5 yamaha outboard. This boat was VERY fast under engine power and i believe her to be very capable in rough water. She can carry a 1000 pound load, which is pretty extraordinary for a boat her size. So this is where i am now.... Between musicbox 2 and Robbsboat.... Decisions decisions. More coming soon!!